Britannia AuctionsCollective auctions and single item consignments in Coventry
The smaller units at Binley, Bayton Road and Seven Stars are full of businesses that supply the vehicle plants, and their equipment changes as the work changes. A tooling shop finishes a programme and has a spare spark eroder. An electrical contractor working on battery installations replaces its test kit. A packaging firm at Ryton has a compressor it no longer runs. A trim supplier moves and leaves a van behind. Each is one lot.
Our collective auctions are built for one lot. We put it into a shared online sale with items from other vendors, so a single machine from a unit at Exhall sits in the same catalogue as a full plant closure. The catalogue shows lot numbers, not vendors. The sale is online and open to buyers from any part of the country, and the trade in Nuneaton, Rugby, Leamington Spa and Birmingham is able to get to a viewing day without a long trip.
Use the form to tell us what you have, and where we think it should sell.
Selling one item without stopping the line
Automotive supply work runs to schedules that do not stop for an auction viewing. That is the usual argument for collecting a single item and selling it from our premises rather than in place: the lot has a set viewing day and staff on hand for collection, and your unit stays closed to the public. It is not the only route, and which one we propose depends on the item, the premises and your dates.
Before collection we check the practical side. Vehicle access and turning space, the door the item leaves through, floor levels, and whether there is a forklift on site or handling equipment has to come with the vehicle. A small machine on a pallet or a compressor on a skid is straightforward once that is known. A welding set, a bench, a vice and a cabinet of tooling go in a van.
A large press or machining centre that is still wired in is often better catalogued where it stands, with the buyer collecting after the sale.
The kit the vehicle trade still uses
Engineering and tooling equipment of this kind is still in daily use around the city and along the M6 corridor, which is the trade a collective catalogue puts it in front of. The sale is online and open to buyers anywhere in the UK, and a single lot from a shop at Bayton Road carries the same photographs and description as every other lot in the sale.
The equipment that comes out of this area most often is the equipment the trade uses every day. Compressors, welding equipment, machine tools, inspection kit, hand and power tools, and the vans and pickups that supply businesses run. Office furniture and IT from the engineering consultancies near the city go in as well, grouped into lots a small office would buy.
Electric vehicle and battery work is adding a new kind of surplus. Test equipment, environmental chambers, power supplies and bench instruments bought for a project are not tied to one region, and online bidding puts them in front of buyers wherever that work is done.
What these sales can include
- Single machine tools
- Individual vans and pickups
- Compressors and generators
- Welding equipment
- Woodworking machines
- Hand tools and power tools
- Office furniture and IT equipment
- Catering equipment from a single kitchen
- Small plant and attachments
- Garden and grounds machinery
- Trailers
- Workshop consumables and stock
How a collective sale works
A collective auction is a regular online timed sale made up of lots from many vendors. Each vendor's lots are identified in the catalogue by lot number only. Buyers see one catalogue and bid across it, so a small consignment sits in the same sale as the larger ones.
Your lots are photographed and listed alongside the others. Bidding runs online, with lots closing in sequence on the sale date. Each lot is offered as seen under the auction terms, with buyers expected to inspect before bidding. The buyer pays the hammer price plus a buyer's premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately.
After the sale, buyers pay and collect within the collection window. We account to you from cleared funds once it has closed and the sale is reconciled, less the agreed commission and any agreed costs.
The collective auctions and single item consignments page covers minimum viable value, at our premises or at yours, what to bring and what to tell us, timescales and unsold lots.
Questions about selling in Coventry
- Our unit at Binley has to be handed back at the end of the quarter. Will the sale be done by then?
The items can be off your floor well before the sale closes, whether you deliver or we collect, so the lease date no longer depends on the sale date. The sale runs in the next collective cycle, and how soon it closes is set by the number of lots, the cataloguing and the bidding period. You are paid once the sale is reconciled and the buyer has paid and collected. Tell us the handover date and we will propose a timetable.
- Is a single piece of tooling from a supply chain shop worth entering?
It depends on the value. A spark eroder, a surface grinder, a jig borer or a CNC lathe is usually worth entering on its own, and we will say whether yours is. Individual cutters, gauges, collets and fixtures are not, so we group them into lots that make sense to a buyer. There is a floor below which the cost of cataloguing exceeds what the lot would make, and we tell you where that floor is before you commit to anything.
More questions about single items and small lots
Related services
Guides
- How a commercial asset auction works
A stage by stage account of an online timed auction for business assets. It covers the asset schedule, cataloguing, viewing days, how bidding closes, buyer's premium and VAT, collection and how you get paid.
- What happens to unsold lots
Not every lot sells, but the site still has to be cleared. This guide covers why lots go unsold, private treaty after the sale, lowering or removing the reserve, a later sale, scrap and WEEE recycling, and what disposal costs.